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1\xa0Lord, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me!
2 Many are saying of me, \u201cGod will not deliver him.\u201d
3\xa0But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high.
4 I call out to the Lord, and he answers me from his holy mountain.
5\xa0I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
6 I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side.
7\xa0Arise, Lord! Deliver me, my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked.
8\xa0From the Lord comes deliverance. May your blessing be on your people. (Psalm 3)

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Yesterday we heard from Psalm 2 about how the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain against the Lord and his anointed.\xa0 Today, in this Psalm ascribed to David, we hear the response of faith from the Lord\u2019s anointed.

All the things that Pastor Michael said yesterday are things we know.\xa0 We know God ultimately wins out.\xa0 We know that we have a secure hope for the future in Christ.\xa0 And yet, while living this life between the promise and its fulfillment, the world often looks more like what David describes here in the words, \u201chow many are my foes!\u201d

All the world seems intent on subverting the main gospel message that the Lord delivers, or saves.\xa0 We are told both explicitly and implicitly that we need to insure ourselves, secure ourselves, pursue our own happiness, peace, order, and good government\u2014that we need to work ourselves up the ladder and elbow everyone else out on the way there under the assumption that there just isn\u2019t enough for everyone.\xa0

In response to these explicit and implicit messages swirling around us from advertisements, influencers, and the accumulated wisdom of \u201cthe way things are,\u201d many of us do live life in pursuit of our own salvation.\xa0 We may perceive our need for salvation to be any number of things\u2014saving from our family story or history, saving from financial or physical insecurity, saving from death and illness, saving from pain\u2014there\u2019s no limit to the things any one of us might perceive as a threat or a worry, including our own selves and sins.\xa0

And yet, though David found the same issue, he responded differently.\xa0 Though just as many messages of \u201cGod will not deliver you\u201d were coming at him, he did not respond by seeking to save himself.\xa0 Instead, he turned to prayer.\xa0 Psalm 3 is the first prayer of the Psalter: the first Psalm that addresses God directly.

Two paths are set before us: the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked.\xa0 The way of life and the way of death.\xa0 Choosing life and righteousness means choosing, against all odds and apparent reality, that the God of our confession is every ounce the God he says he is.\xa0 It means choosing to believe that Jesus Christ really does save.\xa0

Prayer in this context then, is an action of faith.\xa0 An action of choosing to entrust ourselves, our cause, our anxieties and fears\u2014all of it, to God.\xa0 And, having entrusted ourselves to God in Christ, we may just find what David does\u2014that in Christ, we also find our rest\u2014no matter what our situation.\xa0

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